Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog

March 1, 2012March 1, 2012

Berry go Round No. 49

Bora Zivkovic at Blog Around the Clock hosts the latest Berry go Round blog carnival, with botanical news of all sorts. There is much there of interest to us, including longer pieces on items we merely Nibbled. Like the utility of myrrh trees and the story of Maasai reconciliation grass, which some sheep could have told whoever named it thus wasn’t a grass. Wonder if it gets crushed when elephants fight? There’s a new orchid that smells of Chanel No. 5 (but not, apparently, of ylang-ylang). Bitter almond essence, an instructional video for blowflies, and wild licorice round out the picture, but there’s a lot more there to explore.

Thanks Bora. Next month’s carnival will be hosted by Greg Laden. Submit here, and why not volunteer to host?

February 27, 2012February 27, 2012

Brainfood: Bison on the prairie, Tilapia breeding, AM on banana, Phenomics,Yam collection, Nopales, Arable flora

Can bison play a role in conserving habitat for endangered sandhills species in Canada? Maybe, hence the recommendation to re-introduce them. Incidentally, there are a few crop wild relatives on the list of threatened plants of Canada.
Genetic improvement of farmed tilapias: Genetic parameters for body weight at harvest in Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) during five generations of testing in multiple environments. The 10-year “Genetic Improvement of Farmed Tilapias” (GIFT) project was not a complete waste of time. The GIFT population will respond well to selection for increased body mass, and you dont have to do the evaluation in lots of different environments.
Mycorrhizal colonization of major banana genotypes in six East African environments. Different banana genotypes had different levels of infection, but environment also plays an important role. Important because arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi may increase production.
On the use of depth camera for 3D phenotyping of entire plants. An example of this.
Genetic and phenotypic diversity in a germplasm working collection of cultivated tropical yams (Dioscorea spp.). Should be a good starting point for improvement programmes. Kind of like the GIFT population, then, eh? But starting point? Haven’t people been breeding yams for a while?
Cytogeography of the Humifusa clade of Opuntia s.s. Mill. 1754 (Cactaceae, Opuntioideae, Opuntieae): correlations with pleistocene refugia and morphological traits in a polyploid complex. The southeastern and southwestern U.S. represent glacial refugia for diploid members of the clade, and a whole bunch of polyploids resulted when the taxa spread out again after glacial episodes. How many of these are eaten is what I’d like to know, and whether ploidy affects that. I suppose climate change will lead to further complications?
The impact of agricultural intensification and land-use change on the European arable flora. Is significant. Not least because some crop wild relatives are involved, although that’s not really discussed here.

February 24, 2012February 24, 2012

Five peas in a pod

So, just to recap, that Afghan pea accession with resistance to a couple of different strains of Peronospora viciae (which causes downy mildew):

PS 998 = WBH 2126 (Plant Breeding Institution, Weibullsholm, Landskrona) = NGB 102126 = ATC 2432 (Australian Temperate Field Crops Collection, Horsham) = PI 222117 sel.

Thanks to Jenny Davidson, Dirk Enneking, Tony Leonforte, Bob Redden and assorted databases for helping to sort that one out.

February 24, 2012

What makes a good country?

Is it not ironic that on the same day that Bill Gates suggests national targets and reports cards for agricultural productivity, boffins are decrying the use of unidimensional indicators of country-level success in another sphere? Report cards for agricultural sustainability, anyone? For levels of agricultural biodiversity in situ and ex situ?

February 23, 2012

Featured: Ceora’s origins

The Ceora grasspea story has generated quite some response. Dirk has an answer to the problem of documenting the pedigrees of new varieties:

The simplest solution is to ask breeders when they decide to publish their pedigrees (some may have good commercial reasons not to), to reference any of their parent material, which originated from gene bank collections, with the original donor’s ID numbers.

Jeremy wants to know about DOIs. And you can also hear from Ceora’s main breeder, Colin Hanbury, that some things will probably remain a mystery.